Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles When will 30-06 not work?

Absolutely Phil! But I'd prefer you backing me up with "Old Ugly". If I took on a bear with my rifle

Very nice rifles - thanks for posting.

Those look to be some very big brown bear tracks.........

Phil,

I fully agree on the shoot-ability issue, & I qualified my comment on the bigger guns to that effect.

Might be hard for you to believe too, & I'm certain you've had experiences that led to your comments, but there really are guys who can shoot a 338 or a 375 just as well as an '06.

MM

I think the shoot-ability and one's confidence factor in a rifle plays as important a factor as the caliber.

Yes, it does...........some guys have trouble with a .22; some guys have no trouble with a 458.

I've killed more stuff, including elk & moose, with a 270 than everything else put together because it's very shootable, I have complete confidence in it, & I always know exactly where the round is going to go & never wished I had a bigger gun.

But then again, I've also killed a lot with a 338...........

MM

So I guess the real question everyone always wants to know is how much deader were they when you shot them with the 338 than when you shot them with the 270?

Laughin' here.........yeah, they were all dead; & on animals killed with either, not much difference in effectiveness.........but that isn't on dangerous game.

I'm sure I could kill a bear, lion or whatever with an '06 & a 200 gr Partition, but since I haven't, I'd prolly still feel more comfortable with a 338 or a 375........while you cover me with that big ol' 458.

MM

Great thread. But Mr. Phil, don't lay that rifle in the mud!

I love the 30/06. I started there and could have ended there,too.

But I'm not getting rid of my other stuff just because i have a good 30/06

In their place I like my 270's, 7 mags and the 375H&H just as well.

If I get to hunt brown bear again; or Cape Buffalo,I will take a 375 H&H. I've been shooting it for 30+ years.

When will it not work? When the owner is afraid of the recoil. Otherwise its punched tags and filled freezers.

When will it not work?

When the shooter fails to properly place the bullet in the right place.














That can be said for any cartridge that's used for hunting.

Can't rally think of a situation in NA that it would not work with the right bullet. Is it a varmint rifle, no. Is it the best for big bears, no. Would it work? Yes. If I was not a looney, it would be choice as a do all and anything in NA.

I think modern hunters tend to place too much emphasis on powder bottles (cartridge case) and velocity/energy figures and not enough on bullet construction. There is, in my mind, an advantage to velocities in the 2400-2800 fps range, in terms of being more predictable in how a bullet behaves when it hits an animal at normal hunting ranges of 300 yards or less. And a .30-06 will do this with bullets of 180-200 grains...and they make the partition in those weights.
I suspect if the .30-06 hadn't been designed 109 years ago, and appeared today as the ".30-270 Remchestuger Magnum," it would lauded by many as what we'd been waiting for all these years. A reasonable cartridge with long range potential, liveable recoil, and good barrel life.
I am probably coming close to plagiarizing several ancient and extant gunwriters, and for that, I apologize. But I've known too many folks who "traded up" from a .30-06 or .270 to something way bigger, and started missing and losing animals, including elk and deer, cause they didn't practice with, and were secretly scared of, their new rifles.

Another recent trend is fat cases with little body taper and a steep shoulder. Some of the new designs do shoot well but the old 06 case was built with a few things in mind that get overlooked or undervalued these days. I love the way am 06 case feeds and loads in most actions and like the mag capacity. I also seem to get less pressure/ bolt thrust extraction problems. The long neck is nice, it's efficient and works with most powders.

I love the 06 on a rem action because I've got room to seat them out and room to fit my fat fingers in the loading port. It's pretty impressive what a 30-06 with a 208 amax at 2700 mv will do at long range too.

I've been on a quest to get my custom go anywhere do anything rifle right for a while. It's a stainless 700 trued with a 23" 10 twist rem mag sporter custom barrel on it but unfortunately it doesn't shoot well. I like the way it feeds and handles so I bought a different brand barrel, rock creek this time, and plan to try again. I'm going with a little faster 9.33" twist and hope to give the 215 hybrids a try. I'm crossing my fingers that this one will shoot at least as well as my stock T3 and first gen Ti.

I think I have well over a dozen 30-06's mostly because of my JC higgens 50 and 51's, nato model 60's and colt 57 rifles. Whenever I see a commercial fn Mauser auctioned rifle I tend to pick it up and most are in 30-06. My friends say I'm stupid for having a big stack of them and that the commercial fn's will never be worth much but I think in 20-30 more years I'll be glad I grabbed them.

Lately all of my build interests are 700's or clones in the stainless synthetic garb but when I get old if I decide to build some Mauser type customs I'm going to have pleanty of actions to use. I've got lots of commercial fn's, some 1999 argentines, some 08 brazilians, some steyr built 1940 660's and a few others. I'm still holding out hope of finding a 33/40 one day too.

Bb

Give the new Nosler LRAB, 190 & 210 grainers a whirl...........BC of .640 & .730 respectively.

And it's a bonded bullet.

MM

Burleyboy, that reminds me of a friend with a .223 WSSM that didn't feed really great. After he traded it he noted that "weebles wobble but they don't fall down." .30-06s fall down nicely and feed into that chamber.

All this debating makes me wonder how the .30 carbine came about.

There are times when killing isn't enough--you actually have to anchor an animal on the spot, and not just to stop a charge.

I was on a control hunt for feral cattle on a small coffee farm on the Big Island of Hawai'i a few years ago. The farm is about 800 yards long by 500 yards wide. It's surrounded by thick brush, and you hunt the edges as the game comes out of the brush and into the orchard at dusk. The upshot is that you're always near the edge of the property and anything that isn't anchored stands a good chance of getting into nasty brush on someone else's place. Hawaiian land ownership issues and local politics being what they are, that can make meat recovery (among other things) a monumental headache involving police, attorneys, and bad feelings that persist for years.

These cattle went about 700 lbs on the hoof. In three days, I got nine of then, killing about as many with a 9.3x62 as I killed with a 30/06. Nothing I hit with a 270- or 286-grain 9.3mm bullet went more than about 20 yards. The ones that I hit with the 30/06 (180-grain Swift A-Frame or 220-grain CoreLokt) went farther. One big bull made it into the woods with a 180-grain A-Frame through his lungs. About an hour later I got to listen to him scream as a herd of wild hogs pulled him down. Judging by the noise, they didn't wait for him to die before they started eating him.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm talking about one experience with only nine animals, but if I had to make that hunt again, I'd choose a 9.3x62 with 286-grain Partitions loaded to 2,350 fps over a 30/06 HANDS DOWN. The 45/70 with 405-grain factory loads might be even better. Neither of those cartridges kicks harder than the 30/06 with those loads, so they're just as easy to handle and to shoot well at speed. That matters because several of the animals that I shot were within 25 yards, and I was able to hit more than one in the herd at a time--those shots came about as fast as wing shots on doves or quail.

But short of a highly specialized situation like that or stopping a charge, the 30/06 is enough for anything.


Okie John

It was supposed to be a replacement for the Colt 1911 for rear-echelon people who can't shoot a pistol.


Okie John

Nosler BC's are inflated.